Various gaming machines and games include spinning wheel features. The wheel features may comprise a physical rotating reel or a video representation of a wheel. Because spinning reels have such great appeal, various gaming machines and wagering games have been developed which include such a feature.
Relative to gaming machines, the most common implementation of a spinning wheel is a bonus wheel feature. In this implementation, a gaming machine is configured to present a base game. Such a game might comprise a slot game. The slot game may have various winning outcomes with associated base awards. Certain outcomes may trigger activation of a bonus or secondary wheel. The bonus wheel may offer a bonus award in addition to a base award. Generally, the bonus wheel has a plurality of spaces or “slices”, each of which bears a potential bonus award. The wheel spins and randomly stops at one of the spaces, thus resulting in a randomly selected bonus award for the player.
Game players continually seek new and exciting games. These games peak player interest, and thus also increase revenue for casinos. Thus, while existing spinning wheel game features are popular, they are old and not as exciting as they might be.